“Morning has broken”

A walk from Alfriston walked on the 9th October – 11 miles

Eleanor Farjeon loving walking on the Sussex Downs and this is reflected in much of her writings including the hymn “Morning has Broken” written in 1931 which was inspired by the beautiful village of Alfriston and surrounding South Downs. This walk did not stint on the scenery and the weather was fantastic but I don’t think any of us were inspired to writing hymns!

This walk starts along Comp Lane which used to be the main route between Alfriston and Lewes until the turnpike was built (now the A27). The barn in the distance (photo below) has been converted to a very nice home – possibly my new favourite place to live in Sussex. The views were lovely across the countryside but the morning mist meant we could not see too far.

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We turned off Comp Lane and began the steep climb up onto the South Downs. There were a lot of paragliders out this morning and they made a very colourful sight.

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We then followed another ancient track way, the Green Way, across the Downs until we reached the track around the edge of Rathfinny Vineyard. I have walked this path quite a few times and admired the regimented rows of grapes in the valley below – about a month ago I did a tour around the vineyard and can thoroughly recommend it. It was fascinating to see how they press the grapes (very gently) and to find out how they remove the yeast which ferments the grapes from within a sealed bottle.

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My usual route from this track is to head for High and Over and then make our way down the very steep path down to the Cuckmere. Given the amount of rain we have had recently I didn’t fancy the steep climb down so I found another route – around the edge of Seaford, crossing Chyngton Farm and joining the Cuckmere at the Exceat Bridge.

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Seaford (pronounced Sea-ford, not Sea-fd) – is a town which benefited from the arrival of the railway which connected it both to Lewes and London enabling it to develop into a small seaside resort and a dormitory town for Eastbourne and Brighton (if you can’t afford to live in Brighton you live in Eastbourne and if you can’t afford to live in Eastbourne you live in Seaford!) Prior to that Seaford hadn’t had an esay history having been burnt to the ground several times by French pirates in the Middle Ages. In the 16th century the residents of Seaford were known as shags or cormorants because of the passion and energy they put into looting ships which wrecked in the bay – possibly so much so that they encouraged ships to wreck by placing fake harbour lights on the cliff. Surely not!

We didn’t see much of Seaford however as we went around the town as the path runs right at the edge of the town and is separated by a narrow border of trees and shrubs. As we crossed towards Exceat Bridge we had a lovely view of Cuckmere Haven and the Seven Sisters.

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The rest of the walk follows the Cuckmere back to Alfriston. The river was fairly high and parts of the path were either very boggy or underwater. In one place walkers have created a new but fairly rough path through the undergrowth in order to avoid the mud. We passed a couple walking in the opposite direction to us wearing open toed sandals (in October!) – we wondered how much further they would be prepared to go once they came across the mud 🤪.

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We finished the walk at the George Inn – one of three choices in the centre of Alfriston and my favourite. The Smugglers Inn is nice as well and I am sure the Star is lovely but it has recently been renovated and didn’t look very hiker/dog friendly (but I could be wrong). Being a Saturday the pub was very busy so we sat in the garden – it was so busy that we were lucky to even get a table in the garden. I ordered by usual plate of chips and despite having to settle for chunky potato chips they were delicious. Olly barely got a look in! There were a lot of dogs in the garden and one of them decided to start a mid afternoon ‘twilight bark’ with a number of the dogs around the garden taking their turn to contribute a bark. Puppy Samson who walked with us got a little over excited and we thought it was time to take our leave.

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The GPX for this walk can be downloaded here and you are welcome to follow the walk yourself. Please remember you walk it at your own risk and don’t forget to follow the Countryside Code. 
If you do download the walk I ask that you make a £1 donation to my fundraising – which can be found here.
Many thanks and enjoy the walk.